Top 10 Reasons Not to Eat TurkeysAn Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

The U.S. government is the only government in the
Western world that does not have the power to recall contaminated animal
products. Instead, American consumers must trust the profit-hungry meat,
dairy, and egg industries to decide when recalls are necessary.

Pardon me, pilgrim! This Thanksgiving, how about ditching the dead bird?
These beautiful, inquisitive, intelligent birds endure lives of suffering
and painful deaths. Here are 10 good reasons to carve out a new tradition by
flocking to vegetarian entrées, along with some scrumptious holiday cooking
tips and recipes—thankfully, none of them require stuffing food up anyone's
behind.

They're Begging Your Pardon

Turkeys are “smart animals with personality and character, and keen
awareness of their surroundings,” Oregon State University poultry scientist
Tom Savage says. Turkeys are social, playful birds who enjoy the company of
others. They relish having their feathers stroked and like to chirp, cluck,
and gobble along to their favorite tunes. Anyone who spends time with them
at farm sanctuaries quickly learns that turkeys are as varied in personality
as dogs and cats. The president “pardons” a turkey every year—can't you
pardon one too? Learn more about turkeys.

Get Rid of Your Wattle

Turkey flesh is brimming with fat. Just one homemade patty of ground, cooked
turkey meat contains a whopping 244 mg of cholesterol, and half of its
calories come from fat. Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent
less likely to develop heart disease, and they have 40 percent of the cancer
rate of meat-eaters. Plus, meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be
obese than vegans are. Learn more about animal products and your health.

Can You Spell ‘Pandemic’?

Experts are warning that a virulent new strain of bird flu could spread to
human beings and kill millions of Americans. The Bush administration is
trying to deal with the problem, but experts warn that current factory-farm
conditions, in which turkeys are drugged up and bred to grow so quickly they
can barely walk, are a prescription for disease outbreaks. Eating a turkey
carcass contaminated with bird flu could kill you, and currently available
drugs might not work. Cooking should kill the virus, but it could be left
behind on cutting boards and utensils and spread through something else
you're eating. Learn more about bird flu.

Recall Process Doesn't Fly

The U.S. government is the only government in the Western world that does
not have the power to recall contaminated animal products. Instead, American
consumers must trust the profit-hungry meat, dairy, and egg industries to
decide when recalls are necessary. Dan Glickman, secretary of agriculture
under President Bill Clinton, explained that this limit on the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's (USDA) power to protect consumers from tainted
animal products is “one of the biggest loopholes out there.” There are all
sorts of killer bacteria found in turkey flesh, including salmonella and
campylobacter. The Center for Science in the Public Interest found that 28
percent of fresh turkeys were contaminated with bacteria, primarily with
campylobacter, for which the USDA does not even require testing. Learn more
about meat contamination.

Let the Turkeys Give Thanks!

Let's face it: If you're eating a turkey, that's a corpse you've got there
on the table, and if you don't eat it quickly enough, it will decompose. Is
that really what we want as the centerpiece of a holiday meal: an animal's
dead and decaying carcass? Thanksgiving is a time to take stock of our lives
and give thanks for all that we have, so why not let the turkeys give thanks
too? Learn more about what happens to turkeys on factory farms.

Want Stuffing With Your Supergerms?

Dosing turkeys with antibiotics to stimulate their growth and to keep them
alive in filthy, disease-ridden conditions that would otherwise kill them
poses even more risks for people who eat them. Leading health
organizations—including the World Health Organization, the American Medical
Association, and the American Public Health Association—have warned that by
giving powerful drugs (via animal products) to humans who are not sick, the
farmed-animal industry is creating possible long-term risks to human health
and will spread antibiotic-resistant supergerms. That's why the use of drugs
to promote growth in animals used for food has been banned for many years in
Europe. Learn more about antibiotics used in animal products.

Without a Wing and a Prayer

On factory farms, turkeys live for months in sheds where they are packed so
tightly that flapping a wing or stretching a leg is nearly impossible. They
stand in waste, and urine and ammonia fumes burn their eyes and lungs. At
the slaughterhouse, turkeys have their throats slit while they are still
conscious. Those who miss the automated knife are scalded to death in the
defeathering tank. Learn more about the cruelty endured by turkeys.

Foul Farming

Anyone who has driven by a farm has probably smelled it first from a mile
away. Turkeys and other animals raised for food produce 130 times as much
excrement as the entire U.S. human population—all without the benefit of
waste treatment systems. There are no federal guidelines to regulate how
factory farms treat, store, and dispose of the trillions of pounds of
concentrated, untreated animal excrement that they produce each year. Learn
more about how factory farming damages the environment.

Blood, Sweat, and Fear

Killing animals is inherently dangerous work, but the fast line speeds, the
dirty, slippery killing floors, and the lack of training make
animal-processing plants some of the most dangerous places to work in
America today. The industry has refused to slow down the lines or buy
appropriate safety gear because these changes could cut into companies’
bottom lines. In its 185-page exposé on worker exploitation by the
farmed-animal industry, “Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in U.S.
Meat and Poultry Plants,” Human Rights Watch explains, ‘These are not
occasional lapses by employers paying insufficient attention to modern human
resources management policies. These are systematic human rights violations
embedded in meat and poultry industry employment.” Learn why Human Rights
Watch calls meat-packing “the most dangerous factory job in America.”

A Cornucopia of Turkey Alternatives

Give up the giblets and carve out a new tradition this Thanksgiving—Tofurky
Roast and UnTurkey, savory soy- and wheat-based roasts with stuffing and
gravy or oven-roasted, peppered, hickory-smoked, or cranberry- and
stuffing-flavored Tofurky Deli Slices. Give animals and yourself something
to be really thankful for this year.

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